For Life, For Honor
by Rskde
Summary: Ranger Kevin Winters is to become one of the top UNSC snipers, he is meant to carve his way through the Covenant.. But who has designed this fate for him? Follow his story on his road to becoming a top sniper of the United Nations Space Command. Contained within this are his stories, his deployments, his legacy.
1. Graduation

For Life For Honor

Chapter I: Graduation Day

Private First Class Kevin Winters

9th Ranger Battalion, UNSC

August 19th, 2534 UNSC Calendar

"You've all done well these past few months, all of you are ready to take the fight straight to the Covenant. I have full affirmed faith that you all have become the best soldier you could possibly be." Drill Sergeant yells out to the crowd of brand new Rangers.

We had endured the second worst training the UNSC had to offer, nearly up there with the ODST's but not close enough. Me and my pal Holzhy had been paired together from the start when the Sergeant realized my talent for shooting and his talent for spotting and identifying targets.

After the graduation ended we are herded towards the gear check area where we receive our duffel bags full of our personal possessions from when we first arrived here along with full Ranger armor, each chest plate had the class of the person in it, painted to look as badass as possible.

I lift the duffel over my back and I walk with Holzhy towards the first ship that would take us to our first deployment. We board the Pelican along with all of the other Rangers who had been assigned to Oriole company, they each hold a squad designation sheet. Of course Holzhy and I don't have to worry about finding a specific squad, we'd be around running about and providing support for whatever squad needed it the most

As for the war, we're all excited to get our hands on our duty weapons to kick some ass, most of the men here had signed up because the Covenant had killed their family or friends, or maybe both. Either way we are all finding ourselves boarding the _UNSCHeretic_.

The Pelican lands in the hangar before we step out, shuffling with our bags to our assigned quarters while the rest of the Pelicans fly in, this ship looks ready for war, every small ship of every kind was prepped and ready, completely on standby for any sudden attacks and to provide cover for the thousands of soldiers boarding the massive ship.

The ship itself is an Orion class battle cruiser, the massive craft has already seen some action and while it can't hold as many ships and troops as other ships, it still manages to amaze when against Covenant capital ships, ripping through shields with its two or more MAC cannons and thousands of Archer missiles and nukes.

I find Holzhy in our room, he's already chosen his bed and is fast asleep on it, I can completely understand why. While we are supposed to just drop off our gear and get into our cryo stasis pods, a moment of sleep wouldn't hurt anybody.

I place my duffel bag on the floor and I climb into bed, putting my arms behind my head and quickly falling asleep.

An hour or so later I am woken up by a female voice yelling through the door.

"Holzhy! Winters!" She yells.

I jump in my sleep and I get up, opening the door. "Do I know you?" I ask her. She's at least a good four inches shorter than I am, but I immediately regret my word choice when I see the Captain symbol on her shirt.

She looks furious, as if someone had bitch slapped her and she couldn't do anything about it.

"Uhh.. Sorry ma'am, it's been a long couple of months." I say before saluting her, she salutes only for a moment before dropping it, which I do in the same.

"Listen here hotshot, I don't know what the fuck they teach you in Special Operations training but I sure as hell know you do not address a senior officer in the way you did." She snaps.

"Ma'am, in all seriousness you really don't have any authority over me." I say to her dryly. I can hear Holzhy starting to giggle behind me.

She grits her teeth before nodding. "Have fun getting killed out there hotshot." She says before turning briskly and leaving.

I close the door before I turn towards Holzhy and both of us begin to laugh our asses off.

"Holy fuck, you've got balls Kev." He says while laughing, wiping his eyes. "You know they can court marshal you for that, right?" He asks.

"Oh please, humanity is getting wiped out by homicidal aliens, I doubt a Ranger sniper is at the top of their bucket list." I say with a chuckle.

Another knock on the door.

I turn and open the door, this time my senior officer stands in the door. I snap to attention, saluting the man in front of me, who is about my height which is 6'1 on the dot.

"Winters, Captain Reyes just informed me that you disrespected her, is that true?" He asks. I can see said Captain's shadow by the door, her hands on her hips.

"Yeah." I say to him.

He looks shocked, as if he wasn't expecting me to tell the truth. "Well.. Don't let it happen again, okay?" He says before starting to walk off.

"Wa-.. Wait! Punish him! Punish him goddamnit!" Reyes yells at him.

"Captain, you realize we are three weeks out from deployment, I don't know what the Marines do in terms of punishments before deployments, but I like to keep the morale high." He says before walking away.

She steps into the doorway, slamming the door behind her as she pushes me back into the room.

"Whoa, I think this relationship is going along too fast there, Captain." I say with a grin on my face.

"Listen fuckface, you even step in the wrong direction on deployment I'll have you tried for fucking treason." She threatens.

"My name is Winters, not fuckface, and secondly I'm the top sniper of my class back on that planet we left behind, so if you threaten me and I get a call to help you, I could just as easily decide that civilians or Rangers are more important than your jar heads." I say to her. "Now please evacuate my room so that I can get ready for cryo."

She opens the door and storms off without a word. Holzhy and I have another laugh about it before getting into our cryo suits. We walk to the cryo tubes and take our places, getting inside of them before falling asleep.

It takes three weeks for them to wake us up, and then we are out of the pods, vomiting the cryo fluid they had given us to keep our organs from freezing over and dying before we're running to our quarters, excited to deploy.

I get changed into my undersuit before looking myself in the mirror, noticing the armor plating behind me. The helmet had been painted with the picture of an Oriole on both sides of it, an SRS sniper rifle resting on its wing.

I get into the metal boots before attaching the leg pieces, they secure themselves to the boots. I work my way up from my feet to my head, all of the armor securing itself until the finishing touch, the helmet. I put on the full faced helmet over my head, it secures itself to my chestplate before suddenly the armor becomes a lot lighter, the armor's weight reducer kicking in.

I polarize my visor before walking with Holzhy to the armory. We find our way to the Rangers section. I open up my locker and I grab my magnum from the top of it, sliding it into a holster on my hip. I then grab the BR55 from the locker, putting the four magazines I am provided into my belt's ammo carrier.

I walk over to the special weapons wall, grabbing an SRS99 from the rack and around ten magazines for it, putting them on a bandolier before putting the carrier around me. I sling the rifle over my back with my battle rifle.

I then watch Holzhy as he puts his MA5B over his back before he walks over to me, nodding nervously. We walk to the hanger before getting into a Pelican together, a squad of Marines surround us.

A video camera image pops up on my HUD, the face of my Commander pops up. "Winters, Holzhy, I'm gonna quickly brief you two. This planet is called Beras III, it holds two major continents and seven known islands, since teraforming it, it's had around ninety two percent water, so we'll be landing on the bigger continents and taking out the CCS Battlecruiser hovering above it, it's been deploying troops all day." He says. "Expect casualties, you'll be deploying on a hilltop seven hundred meters away from the objective, good luck." He says before disappearing.

The Pelican swoops down through the atmosphere, plasma erupting around us as we get closer to the battle cruiser. The Pelican lands and the Marines run out before it lifts off again, leaving Holzhy and I in the back.

The Pelican shakes as we approach our objective, we get dropped around four hundred meters from our hill. We run out of the back, the drop ship flies off unharmed. We dash to the hill and we lay down at the peak.

The massive Battlecruiser towers over us, it's shadow seeming to block out the sun. The ship is still deploying troops as I look through the sight, looking around at the ground.

"Winters, there's a Major bearing two seven two." He says to me. I find the Major, he seems to be directing the troops around him as I fire, the round forcing blue blood to fly on to the Grunt behind him.

The troops that were under him begin to panic, running back up the ramp, where they are executed by several Minors. We continue finding and killing Majors, as the Generals seemed too afraid to show their slimy faces in the crosshairs of my rifle.

I hear branches break behind us and then Holzhy is on his feet, spraying his rifle through the treeline as I begin to take down any alien that moves. The ground attack starts as a massive amounts of Marines and other ground elements run towards the cruiser.

The lines of UNSC troops are hit by a wall of plasma, troops on both sides falling as they die. I look around for squad leaders, taking more shots at them to cause more disruption.

Holzhy has already switched to his magnum, aliens behind us have begun to get angry. I drop my rifle momentarily, grabbing my BR55 and turning on to my back, my legs spread out in front of me as I fire down at the enemy.

A pile of dead aliens lays below us, the lines begin to break. The aliens start to run off from behind, clearly broken.

"I'm out of ammo!" Holzhy yells. I toss him my rifle, handing him a magazine whenever he needs it. Eventually the aliens disappear from behind us and Holzhy goes on sentry to make sure no more aliens sneak up.

The battle ahead is beginning to turn in the UNSC's favor as our forces push to the ramp of the cruiser. The ramp begins to retract and that's when it happens.

A massive arc of light hits the Battlecruiser, and then another one, and then another one. The UNSC forces begin to run from the massive cruiser as the top of it completely explodes, falling towards the ground at alarming speeds. It hits the ground, crushing a company of UNSC Marines and at least three battalions of Covenant forces.

The dust cloud that rises up spreads out over what seems like the entire continent, the ground shaking fiercely with explosions. I start laughing as I watch the behemoth explode, they had been so focused on our infantry that they hadn't even noticed the _Heretic_ moving in for a MAC cannon run.

Now alls we have to do is hunt down the rest of the bastards.

I look through my scope again but the dust is too thick, and my heat vision scope is overwhelmed by the fire emerging from the Battlecruiser. I put my sniper rifle over my back and I grab my pistol from my holster. I nod to Holzhy and we begin to move down the hill, eyes scanning through the dust for contact.

To keep close to each other I grab the hook on the back of his armor, keeping my magnum positioned over his shoulder for stability purposes.

Through the dust I can hear chatter, an alien gurgling to another. I let off a shot in the general direction, the scream of a surprised Sangheli Minor is the last noise it makes. Unfortunately it's friend runs off, using the dust to its advantage.

"Winters, do you copy?" I hear in my radio.

"Yo, still here." I say.

"Good to hear, we've pretty much gotten scrambled up by the dust, but we've been promised an evacuation at a town around four klicks from our position, make sure you're there." He says before logging off the net.

I nod to Holzhy as a waypoint is set on our HUDs, we begin a laugh jog to get there, but we lost so much ammo that we started a dead on sprint towards the objective as our gear was much lighter than earlier.

The dust begins to clear and that's when we see the town our Commander had been talking about. While it is fairly large, it looks dead, almost like everyone had just left everything behind and made a run for the evacuation shuttles. Or all of them are very smart about hiding.

The town doesn't look damaged either, every building still intact, cars still parked on the sides of roads.

"I thought towns were always the first targets.." I say to Holzhy quietly.

"They must've found something more important." He says with a shrug. "Why does it matter, they're dead aren't they-."

"Mayday mayday! All units be advised unknown amounts of Covenant have broken through the defensive line! Official count coming in now.. Oh my god.. We have confirmed reports of six CCS Battlecruisers, one supercarrier, and eight Corvettes." A voice says over emergency comm.

I look up and I watch as several pods make a freefall towards the city. Holzhy and I keep sprinting towards the town, those aren't ODST pods.

We make our way into the town, quickly finding our way to one of many skyscrapers within it. We step into the stairway, running as fast as our legs will take us up the stairs. We reach the top within minutes where we set up our sniper post.

"This is Overwatch, we've got a position set up in grid 104, 36, over." I say over the radio, receiving multiple replies of 'copy' or 'roger'.

The pods smash into buildings and spin around before hitting the roads, causing the polycrete underneath to become cracked. Elites come out of the pods, each of them wearing the special forces armor.

They all assemble before turning on their cloaks, disappearing into thin air.

"Holzhy, watch our back with thermals on." I tell him before switching my own thermals on, the Elites are nowhere to be seen, so I assume that they have gone into the building we are currently on top of.

The only weapons we actually have ammo for is my SRS99, my magnum, and Holzhy's magnum. I spot more Special operations Elites moving around, I fire a single shot once they line up correctly, taking two down with the one bullet before firing again, this time missing but sending them all scrambling for cover.

I hear Holzhy's magnum go off, I flip around on to my back and blindly fire a shot, sending an Elite toppling off of the roof, a stream of purple blood following it in its wake.

I jump up as an Elite grabs my neck, forcing me to drop my rifle. Holzhy is punched so hard that his visor cracks, putting him on his ass.

The Elite who is holding me deploys his energy sword, holding it close to my neck. "I will avenge the fallen." It growls.

"How about you throw me off the roof with him, squid." I manage to choke out. The Elite laughs and picks up Holzhy too, throwing us both off of the roof.

While we fall I turn to my buddy, fist bumping him before we deploy our standard issue Ranger jump packs. I fly back up to the roof, throwing my middle finger up into the Elite's face before blowing a hole through it with my magnum.

The other Elites around him take up positions around the roof and begin to fire at us as we land. I grab my rifle and fire several more hip fire shots, taking out an Elite every couple of shots.

We find ourselves jumping off of the roof again when we realized that we are outnumbered. We fire the packs a couple of times on the way down before we touch down. We start running up the street, using our heat vision to spot any cloaked Elites around.

I aim my rifle around the corner of a sidewalk, at least fifteen heat signatures lay in front of me.

"UNSC! Hold fire!" A woman yells in front of us.

I depolarize my visor, nearly bursting out in laughter. "Hello Reyes." I say to the woman in front of me, noticing the scared look on her face. "How's it going?"

"Fuck off Winters." She says while leading us and her Marines into a hotel.

"So what're we looking at right now?" I ask the Captain.

"They're still hovering around the area the Battlecruiser crashed at, it looks like they're looking for something." She says quietly, looking around at her Marines.

"Listen, I don't know if you guys know a way out of here.." She says to us. "We've taken fifty five percent casualties, we need evacuation but the comm is offline." She explains.

"We're out of ammo and in the dark, just like you." I say to her.

"We have plenty of ammo, go rearm." She says before sitting down on a small couch, taking her helmet off and letting her shortish hair fall to her shoulders.

Holzhy and I walk to a worn out looking Marine with several ammo bags sitting at his feet. We open up the bags and take several magazines for our rifles and pistols.

I personally take five more magazines for my BR-55, two more for my SRS99, and one more for my magnum.

We walk to the roof where I lean against the half wall with my rifle sticking up in the air. I watch Holzhy eat a shitty UNSC standard issue granola bar with one hand, his other holding his rifle.

I look up in the sky at the fleet of Covenant ships hanging above us like stars, their sleek elegance astounding me.

I watch them engage another UNSC ship, a smaller Halcylon class, the side explodes as it begins drifting towards the ground.

"It's falling from the sky.." I whisper.

Authors note

Oh god, I'm back.

Let me start off with the fact that I am really sorry. I didn't want to end Sins, and I felt awful doing it, but I still have no heart to continue it, so I'm starting a new one that will be much better with only this character's perspective, maybe every couple of chapters or so I'll put it in a new perspective.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I hope you're as excited for this as I am!

Read on

-Rsk


	2. Falling from the Sky

Chapter II: Falling from the Sky

Private First Class Kevin Winters  
9th Ranger Battalion, UNSC  
Beras III, Beras system  
August 19th, 2534 UNSC Calendar

The Halcyon cruiser deploys drop pods, Pelicans, anything it can use to get their people out of the ship in time. We just watch the ship fall towards the ocean, unable to speak at how easily it was taken down. It had taken us multiple battalions and at least two companies of casualties to take down one of their ships, how are we meant to take down so many.

"Holzhy, are we gonna die here?" I ask tiredly as I look over at him.

"If you keep pulling stunts like the jump pack thing, yes." He says with a laugh. "Let's conserve ammo for now, only fire when requested and all that." He suggests.

"Right." I say before turning my attention back to the sky, the sun has been cut in half by the horizon, a warm orange spreading around it as it continues to fall.

"I just hope the Navy knows what they're doing." Holzhy admits as we watch.

"Yeah, me too."

"Winters, I'm gonna get some sleep, wake me up in a couple of hours if you want some shuteye as well." He says before polarizing his helmet. He leans his head back against the half wall before his breathing steadies, he easily falls asleep.

I flip around and set up my SRS99 on the half wall, pivoting it around to ensure no aliens would be kicking down our door tonight.

In the distance the ambient sounds of gunfire and explosions become obvious to me as the quiet night continues on.

I feel myself start to drift off but I quickly snap out of it, returning to my duty. My eyes drift up to the clock in the top right corner of my HUD, it's official that I haven't gotten any real sleep in about three weeks and one day. The statistic bounces around in my head, my first time in cryo stasis and in combat has been the longest I've technically been awake.

The problem with cryo is you don't fall asleep, you just sit there frozen, no dreams, no nightmares, just the depth of your mind.

I hear footsteps coming up the stairs but I continue facing forward as to look as if I am still actually paying attention to what is going on out there.

"Winters." A familiar female voice says behind me.

"Yeah?" I ask, turning my head slightly to see Reyes standing with two other Marines at her side.

"I wanted to talk to you about earlier." She says to him, motioning for her guards to walk off.

"Sorry." I simply say. "It was an exhausting three months." I admit.

"Yeah, I'm not gonna fucking court marshal you over it, I'm gonna get you latrine duty or something when we get out of here." She says. "Just don't let it happen again."

"Right." I say as I turn back to the rifle in my hands.

"You should get some sleep, my Marines can take it from here." She says quietly, as if not trying to alert anything around us, though there could probably be some alien wondering where these voices are coming from.

I nod and flip the safety of my rifle back on before putting it over my back, my armor's magnetic locks engaging to keep it in place.

I stand and shuffle my way downstairs to a couch in the lobby. I crash on it and take off my helmet, looking around the lobby for a moment before placing it on the floor next to the couch. I sigh deeply before closing my eyes and for the first time in three weeks actually falling asleep.

My dreams aren't much better than our reality. My mind takes form on the ground under the Battlecruiser, my feet frozen in place as I stare up in horror as the colossal ship sails towards the ground. Towards me.

I snap awake as soon as it hits the ground. The lobby around me is still quiet, a clock on the wall indicates that it is seven in the morning. I quickly grab my helmet and put it on to my head, listening to the hiss of the locks on my chest plate as the helmet is locked into place.

I scan the glass of the helmet with my eyes, the crack in it from the Elite still very noticeable, almost like a giant crack in porcelain.

I examine my armor, there are burn marks on my pauldrons and on my sides from plasma fire we had taken. I polarize my visor before grabbing my rifle off of the floor and walking upstairs to wake Holzhy.

I shake the sleeping man who wakes immediately, nodding to me as he puts his helmet on and grabs his MA5B. We walk downstairs and out the lobby door, opening our comms to all units in the area.

The Covenant had been busy reducing this city to dust last night, hell bent on removing any trace of humanity from this planet. But those cruisers still sit over where the Battlecruiser had been.

Holzhy and I climb up a rubble pile into a destroyed house, taking cover before accessing the radio. "Code: Alpha, Quebec, Gamma." I read off into the radio, which immediately puts me into contact with the squad leaders in the area.

"Be advised, Ranger marksman spotter team on standby for any team that needs assistance." I say into the radio, waiting for a response.

"This is Sergeant Major Oakley from Fifth Armor, we are currently pinned down at grid 106, 047, over." I hear through the radio. "Be advised, we are currently a part of the evacuation effort, around two hundred civilians in tow."

"Sounds like we're helping civilians, Holzhy." I say to him.

"It would be our civic duty." He says before leading the way to the roof of the almost destroyed house. The grid coordinates the a Sergeant Major had read off are only a couple of blocks up the road inside of the residential district.

We hop roof to roof, quickly and efficiently making our way to the armor battalion. I scan around quickly, noticing a column of pitch black smoke rising into the sky, I point it out to Holzhy before hopping roof to roof to reach it. The source of the smoke is a Scorpion tank, the turret completely gone.

Up the road sits an armored column in a staggered column formation, all of the vehicles splitting to two sides of the road. The armor consists of several Warthogs, one Scorpion and at least three modified Elephants, probably where the civilians are being kept.

The Covenant seems to be targeting the Elephant in particular, favoring to kill civilians instead of the soldiers desperately firing at the source of the shooting. Giant green balls of plasma slam into the Scorpion which immediately retaliates by firing a random shot in the same direction the plasma had come from.

We hop roof to roof until the enemy ambush point is literally right in front of us.

Now, when I had seen the green plasma rocket, I assumed a Grunt had one of those big tank killers. But I am very wrong.

In front of us stands at least ten Jackal snipers, which seem to be making a game out of the whole thing, occasionally holding up a piece of glass to test the accuracy of their foe. They stop when a bigger Jackal, who I immediately nickname 'Big Bird' gets one to the hand. On the other side sits two Hunters, taking cover behind the slanted roof of the house they sit on.

I reach for my BR-55, watching Holzhy as he grabs two frag grenades from his belt. He tosses one by the Hunters and one by the Jackals.

The Jackals die immediately, but our two new friends stand and basically shrug off the explosion. One of them spots us and starts charging. A thought in the back of my mind remembers training against Hunters.

I switch my rifle to three round bursts as I take shots at the colony of orange worms on the sides of the Hunters neck, watching it lift its shield to cover itself, but reveal a tiny bit of worms.

I take the chance to fire at the worms, watching them get sliced in half by my bullets, orange blood flying from its wounds.

"Winters!" Holzhy yells as the other Hunter charges me, swinging its shield at me. If you've ever played the game limbo with a giant fucking shield then you can probably understand how I feel while I nearly fall backwards, the shield scraping the bottom of my helmet as it flies past.

I collapse into a rockstar position, my legs behind my back. They burn and scream in pain, but it is better then getting knocked off of a roof again. My finger involuntarily changes the firing mode to full auto as I spray the worms again, this time killing the bastard.

His wounded friend howls as he charges me, skidding his shield on the ground as he approaches. I wait for him to get close before rolling out of the way, allowing him to charge past like an angry bull.

I quickly flip the SRS off of my back, firing a shot straight through the Hunter, causing a wave of orange blood to cover the roof behind it. The massive alien falls over, breathing his last breath.

I breathe easier when I realize the battle at hand is over. I reattach my rifle to my back before bending over and grabbing my BR-55 from the ground, the gun now scratched from sliding out of my hands.

Holzhy and I jump down to the convoy, where a large Army man greets us with an enthusiastic grin on his face.

"I cannot express my thanks to you in words." He admits to us. "You've saved us and these civilians, the engineers can actually come here now that the Covvies are dead and then we can get moving again." He says. "Thank you."

We just nod before walking off, assuming that they have the situation under control from here on out. We call out on the radio again but all is silent for awhile.

Above us the sky is full of explosions, mostly UNSC casualties as the Covenant fleet wipes ours across the floor, morale is low both in the air and on the ground as we begin to realize that no matter how much damage we do on the ground the air battle would still decide our fate.

It's also beginning to become very obvious that the town we are in currently might be the last ground the UNSC holds on the planet, and the enemy is still crawling around like rats.

As we walk up the road we hear the sounds of an enemy tank ahead of us. We jog into the ruins of a construction site, waiting for the Wraiths and Phantoms to pass.

"Be advised, several enemy armored vehicles spotted on fifth Robinson." I whisper into my radio before marking them on the map, any unit could now see their exact location at any time with the satellites that are still left, although the enemy would soon take them out.

So marking them on a stagnant location for now isn't such a bad idea.

We look around the site for a little while, peeking our heads out to check for enemies which we find pretty easily. A whole camp has been set up by the enemy in the heart of the city, marking that is no problem for me.

Holzhy and I peek out of the construction site one last time before dashing across the road. I slam shoulder first into an abandoned apartment building, caution tape still on the old wooden door as I bash it in. Dust curls around us from all around as we step inside, we both quickly drag couches, cabinets, anything we can find to block the open door.

Once the door is blocked we head upstairs to the top floor, where a boarded up window overlooks the enemy camp perfectly.

I watch Holzhy move to the other side of the room, quietly shutting the door and aiming at it to make sure I don't get flanked.

"This is Winters, I've found an enemy encampment, requesting list of high priority Covenant targets, over." I say quietly while setting up my rifle on the window sill, using the minimum zoom to get a good look at the camp.

On the right side of my HUD I see a list of pictures scrolling up from lowest priority to highest, showing many colorful Jackals and Elites. As I look around one specifically catches my eye, one of the top priorities on the list.

They called them prophets, and I had only seen them in pictures, but now one is right in front of me, and next to him is what looks like a giant purple cylinder, he presses his hand against it causing dirt to shake from it, almost like it had been dug out of the ground.

I continue to watch as the pod opens, revealing what seems to be a map.. I quickly snap a picture using my helmet camera before broadcasting it over the UNSC emergency net.

"What exactly is this?" I whisper over the radio.

"Winters, you need to take the shot on that guy, all units be advised they're here for artifacts." A voice says over the radio.

I allow my breathing to slow, the pressure of the situation beginning to build as I aim down sight, noticing an Elite General standing next to the Prophet.

I take aim at the Prophet, breathing in and out, when I run out of breath I pull the trigger, right as a Covenant drop ship flies in, the gravity gens underneath it push my bullet straight into the skull of the General.

"Time to run Holzhy!" I yell as I throw my rifle over my back, going shoulder first into the door and quickly making my way down the stairs, my BR-55 seems to be automatically in my hands as I rush down, panic spreading through me.

In my minds eye I can see the Prophet being rushed into the drop ship with the cylinder, a sense of failure sets itself in. I quickly banish that thought when I hear the sound of heavy footsteps downstairs.

We still have about two stories to go down, so I grab my last fragmentation grenade, pulling the pin off and dropping it down the stairwell. I use the butt of my gun to smash out a small window which I can barely fit through as I climb out, standing on a small ledge outside of it as my jump pack deploys.

A low fuel indicator burns on the top left of my HUD, I'd only be able to stop myself from breaking my ankles with the amount of fuel that is left unless I conserve it. I push off of the ledge, below me sit Covenant soldiers out for the blood of the General's assassin.

My jump pack deploys several times, allowing me to glide on to the roof of the opposite building, or at least close enough for my gut to smack into the ledge on the roof. My hands scramble to gain purchase on the ledge, I watch Holzhy glide over perfectly, his feet hitting the ground of the roof before he comes over and helps me up.

We start to free run across roofs as the enemy behind us clear out the building we were just inside of. My boots smack against the pavement of the roofs as I dead on sprint for my life, hoping to God that we can get away before they figure out which direction we had gone in.

The setting sun suddenly has my attention, a warm orange spreading over the horizon as day turns to night.

"This is Winters, are there any FOBs established as of yet?" I ask over the radio.

"We've got the Marines in the Grand Hotel and the rest of us have set up shop at the Spaceport." A voice says, two waypoints show up on my HUD, both are marked.

"Spaceport sounds good." I say over our private comm.

"Yeah, but shouldn't we get the Marines?" Holzhy asks.

"Sure, fuck it." I say before heading towards the Grand Hotel. We mostly use the roofs to our advantage, moving swiftly and silently as the night progresses. We see many Covenant soldiers, most of them look bored of being out of combat all day.

Holzhy and I make sure to set plenty of traps to cover up our tracks, whether it's a hand grenade hanging from a clothes line or sharpened sticks in order to stall and maybe give out some splinters to enemies in the area.

After about an hour of taking it slow, we spot the Grand Hotel in all of its glory, Reyes' Marines still sit on the roof, a ring of Covenant bodies surrounding the hotel suggests a battle, but the Marines did not seem to fair well as multiple body bags are neatly lined up on the roof.

We make our way down before I grab my magnum, flashing a flashlight on it at the nearest Marine to let them know our position. The Marine spots me and motions for me to move up which I gladly do.

We move into the lobby before I spot Reyes, her armor has been stripped, a large hole in the belly of her undersuit suggests a plasma hit, the angry red skin revealed confirms it.

I walk over to her and I put my hand on her hip, shaking her lightly. Her eyes flutter open and she looks up at me. "Thought you boys'd never be back." She says weakly before attempting to sit up, failing miserably.

"We're here to get ya'll to safety." Holzhy comments. "Rest of the UNSC is holed up at the space port." He explains.

"How can we get there?" She asks, her senses seemingly returning to her in an instant.

"The enemy has only been position snipers on the rooftops, and the little bastards aren't very active at night." I explain. "We can easily get to the Spaceport from here, we just need full dedication unless you guys wanna stay here until the planet gets glassed." I offer.

She just nods and I help her get up, her Second in command runs up to her and whispers something into her ear before raising his eyebrows at her.

"Gather the men, we're getting to that Spaceport." She says to him. He nods and jogs off, gathering men as he goes.

I find Reyes' armor before helping her attach it, putting her helmet on to her head as a final touch. "Good as new." I comment before walking over to the ammo box, grabbing it and taking an extra SRS clip.

I walk over to the remainder of Marines before leading them outside and to the separate rooftops, the ones that will take us to the Spaceport. We watch carefully for Jackal snipers as we move across the roofs, the Spaceport now in sight.

When we finally make it to the Spaceport we're greeted by several medics and guards rushing out to greet us, the guards setting a perimeter while the medics take our wounded inside of the port. I shrug off a medic as I walk inside, looking around at the amount of refugees and UNSC personnel around the port.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice able male refugees are being handed MA5B's with two clips each, almost as if we are running short of men, which I don't doubt.

A man comes running out of the tent, shouting in joy.

"Reinforcements are here! We've got a fleet of thirty coming to assist us!" He yells, a ripple of hope rushes through the crowd.

The sky above is becomes a fireworks display as the ships enter combat with each other, even though we nearly outnumbered them three to one, friendly casualties will still be high.

UNSC personnel start rushing people to the remaining ships in the port, women and children getting in first while the men and soldiers notice the ground shaking.

Several Wraith tanks, four Hunter pairs and at least fifty plus enemy combatants are making their way up the road towards us, most of them holding a fiery vengeance in their eyes. Everybody with a loaded weapon takes up positions, ready to defend the ships at any cost.

The first ship lifts off, a volley of plasma following it as it soars towards the sky. A Halcyon cruiser flies around the orbit of the planet until it's directly overtop of us, the ship makes it to safety. The cruiser continues to make loops around the planet, effectively avoiding enemy fire.

Meanwhile we spread out as plasma shots rain down on us, anti tank soldiers on our side scrambling to get their SPANKr rockets ready, firing off a couple at the oncoming tanks.

The tank battalion we had helped earlier today are manning the Scorpion that was broken, firing a slug into the first Wraith, putting a hole in it and forcing it to combust in a ball of blue fire.

The male refugees start to fall back, dropping their weapons and rushing towards an unmanned ship as they are ordered to do so. On both sides infantry fall and flail their arms as they are hit. I fire off a shot with my SRS, nailing a Hunter in the neck as it rushes towards me, the enemy infantry now in the port itself. The Hunter chokes and falls over, sliding towards me as it dies.

My helmet starts having trouble buffering out the constant noise around me, the screams and gunfire, the sounds flickering in and out of my ears. My HUD tells me that it's three in the morning, back home I'd still be asleep. Crazy how things change.

The last ship takes off, forcing UNSC personnel backwards, slowly moving back while firing as the horde approaches. I look to my left and watch a man get stuck with a plasma grenade, he runs towards a Hunter and jumps into it with his arms spread wide, taking the bastard down with him. The sight nearly causes me to choke, he was willing to sacrifice himself for this losing cause.

Our slow retreat turns into a full on run, the Wraith tanks are done and only two Hunter pairs remain, but around forty or more infantry aliens remain. The Scorpions cover us as we run behind them, causing them to slowly back up as their cannons spray enemies down.

It's obvious the battle has turned in our favor, the enemy was expecting to destroy our ships before we could escape, but our Halcyon cruiser was probably out of the system by now, and our Navy was probably drinking to their victory.

The realization seems to spread through their lines as Grunts and Jackals break off from the group, running frantically towards the gates. The Elites turn on them and open fire, slaughtering the crowd of their own soldiers. Of course that gives us the chance to shoot them in their backs.

We start pushing back, soldiers jumping on to vehicles to chase down the enemy combatants. We drive them out of the city and cheer as we watch the enemy scurry into the forests around the massive city.

"We've captured sector seven." Reyes announces over the radio, similar responses spring up all over the radio as we start to head back, chatting about the battle as we look for any friendly casualties that are able to be helped, we only find a few.

"All in all a good two days." Holzhy says to me as we walk. "But we've still got more coming if those enemy ships get closer." He says as he points up at the battle in the sky, the image reminding me of the crashed Halcyon cruiser.

"We'll kick their asses if they come back." I say to him with a nod.

_  
Authors note

New chapter, sorry I didn't post it yesterday like I promised I would, but I got distracted and didn't complete it until this morning and then my phone wouldn't let me upload it. Yay.

So next chapter will be the last chapter of the deployment and then I've got to do some research on a certain topic to ensure I don't get it wrong. Remember to leave a review of what you think about it so far, or if you have any criticisms ( constructive please ) I would love to hear them.

That's it for this note.

Read on  
-Rsk


	3. Hunters

Chapter III: Hunters

Private First Class Kevin Winters

9th Ranger Battalion, UNSC

Beras III, Beras system

August 20th, 2534 UNSC Calendar

A day of rest was exactly what we needed, the battle for Beras mostly ended last night when the enemy fleet abandoned their army on the surface of the planet. We basically just sit around on guard duty, sometimes the Marines will get picked up in Falcons to go on sky patrols but it doesn't happen very often.

I lean against the window of the guard tower I've been standing in since 0500, sleep still lines my eyes from the peaceful dream I'd been having. Of course today Reyes decided to make my life a living hell. I'm pretty much assigned to this position through breakfast, meaning I have to eat some shitty protein bars or starve, and then for lunch I got to dig latrines. Great.

My eyes flick around at the buildings around us, after the Covenant left the city, command thought it'd be a swell idea for us to turn their FOB into our FOB, reminding me of the missed shot that would've made me a legend among the Rangers, I mean, anybody can take down a General, but kill reports of a Prophet have never been public if they've happened, I wanted to be the face that killed the son of a bitch. And word is from the Navy he got away.

Hours pass and I am tapped on the shoulder, a Marine sniper taking my place as I walk down and grab a good old fashioned E-Tool from the armory, getting to work as I start digging. According to command the water pipes in the city have pretty much blown up, causing flooding within the homes of citizens. How did it happen? No clue, I just decide to keep my mouth shut for once and dig the stupid latrine.

When I finish I put the E-Tool back in the armory, where I'm greeted by Reyes. "Learnt your lesson yet?" She asks me with the raise of her eyebrows. She looks a lot better than she had yesterday, the UNSC medics really work wonders.

"Yes ma'am." I say to her, forming up an attention stance as she greets me.

"So I'm assuming it won't happen again." She says.

"It won't happen again."

"Good. Dismissed."

I turn on my heel and walk away, my SRS still on my shoulder. I hear my helmet's PDA system go off, a small message waiting for me.

' _We got picked for an assignment -Holzhy'_

I let out a sigh of relief, it's about time we got picked to do anything.

I check my armor webbing for ammunition, finding plenty as I walk over to the staging area, several Falcon's already ready. I jog up to the closest VTOL, jumping on to the side rail and buckling myself in, testing my field of view with my rifle's scope, just to make sure I can shoot any bastard I see.

A bunch of other Rangers seat themselves on to the skids before the Falcon lifts off, speeding out of the city. We fly over the CCS Battlecruiser wreckage, UNSC manned excavators surround it, stripping it clean of any technology ONI could possibly use for the war effort.

Trees pass under us, smoking remains of tanks and fallen aircraft leaving scars through the lush forest. It's a strange thing to be able to look down and see the remains of a battle with no bodies.

A voice in the back of my head reminds me that until our fleet had arrived we were getting our asses handed to us, and now we are the hunters.

As we approach our target area ( according to our pilot ), a man begins to talk on the radio. "We've had some odd signals in this area, confirmation of plasma detonations all through last night along with confirmed sightings of Grunt patrols, we need ya'll to go in there and kill all of them." The voice says before simply stopping, he had already given us all we needed.

Our Falcon lowers itself to the ground after slowing down, the skids touching the ground before we're off, jogging into the treelike towards our objective marker. I turn the heat scope for my SRS to on, looking through it to make sure we aren't going to have any surprises for at least now.

Ahead of us is nothing as we continue our trek through the woods. We arrive at the objective and begin to look around, it takes about fifteen minutes for the Rangers to find something. We all stack up on the outside of an old titanium mine, a trail of blue blood indicating that Grunts had been here, wounded or dead.

We move into the cave, staying along the wall with our weapons raised as we walk inside to find a gruesome sight.

Bodies lay all around, every alien imaginable except for Elites and of course Brutes since the apes were never here in the first place. Each alien body upon further inspection had holes torn into their bodies, their insides being removed from them.

"Oh shit." Holzhy says.

"What's up?" I ask him.

"I think the Elites ate these guys, to survive." He explains as we walk further into the mine, expecting to find the Elites at any moment. I pull up a map of the mine of the top left corner of my HUD, the last open area of the mine approaching fast.

We spread out into the area only to find what must be a refugee camp of Elites. They all look malnourished and tired, but we wipe that off of them by filling their bodies with lead.

I watch as their bodies crumple to the ground, we do another sweep of the cave before heading back out, getting on to the Falcons again and heading back to base.

It only takes a week for the planet to be declared clear of Covenant forces, meaning a UNSC victory. Luckily our ship the UNSC _Heretic_ survived the battle above, it had been the ship to cover the civilian refugees in their journey off planet, it seems like we exhausted a lot if not all of our ammunition. We board the ship and report to our rooms for some well needed rest, when I get to my quarters a folder is sitting on my bed.

I lean down and pick it up slowly, opening it before reading the message inside.

' _Private First Class Kevin Winters, you are receiving a promotion to Specialist and a pass into the Ranger Sniper School because of your actions on Beras, you and your spotter will learn the ways of the UNSC Sniper before returning to active duty. Report to Fort Alexandria on Reach for your training_.'

I place the folder on Holzhy's bed before walking to the armory to return my weapons. I then walk back to my room and I change out of my armor, placing the pieces in a box under my bed. I chat with Holzhy about the sniper school before walking up to the cryo tubes where we are frozen for our journey to Reach.

When we are unfrozen we get dressed into our casuals and catch the first Airbus to the surface, the bus takes us by the space port where we grab a cab and drove to the camp we were designated to go to.

We get processed fairly easily, the sniper school itself consists of a Virtual Environment room for moving targets and the likes, a shooting range, a small marsh and forest, plus the main building where the recruits and instructors stay.

Our first order of the day is learning about fire control and picking targets, then the lessons moved to knowing our weapon to wind and distance, making sure that we understand how a rifle works.

My eyes flick around at the recruits around me, some looked as if they hadn't even seen combat, the UNSC had already put out a giant propaganda program for all able men and women to join up, but it didn't seem to be very effective as you still see a lot of able bodied men and women roaming the streets.

We move to the shooting range, firing at targets for the rest of the day and going back to the barracks for the night, we would only have two more days of training. Traditional sniper school would last a lot longer, but the UNSC needed soldiers out of training as quickly as possible to support the war effort, after all, recruits are nothing compared to trained snipers.

The instructors explain that a lot of our training will come from being on the battlefield, which is about as reassuring as it sounds.

The next morning we work on ghillie suits, specifically ones that would fit over our armor, anything from marking our armor with dirt to covering ourselves with foliage. We test these suits by staying perfectly still in the ground and trying to get from one point to another through the forest and the marsh while the instructors look for us, if they find us you have to try again.

I passed this test on my third try, finally discovering that hiding in tall grass was not exactly your best bet. We go down to the range again and start shooting, our aim has significantly improved and our spotters read off the wind and distance like its their job.. Which it is.

Our final day on camp we did our tests, all of us except for two Green Rangers pass easily and are given our orders, which is pretty much to go back to the same ship, so for Holzhy and I we got to enjoy ourselves on Reach for the rest of the week, so about four days.

The UNSC pays for a hotel room, Holzhy sleeps in a different room while I crash in the main room, the hotel beds nice and fluffy compared to the UNSC standard shitty cot we had been sleeping on in Beras.

I wake up in the morning and I decide to take a walk, trying to see what New Alexandria had to offer, other than the notorious Red District, which contains the largest strip clubs and whorehouses on Reach.

I find a nice little restaurant to eat lunch in, after all, what else is there to do on a planet with the largest amount of military personnel, strip clubs and bars on this side of the Galaxy? Honestly at this point I'm just counting the days until my next deployment. I flash my dog tags to the guy at the door and he finds me a seat, a pretty waitress comes by but at this point I could give less of a shit about what she looked like considering she'd be handling my food.

It only takes about ten minutes for me to finish and pay, and then I'm out with my hands in my pockets, walking up the road to the hotel I was assigned, the only productive thing I can see myself doing is sleeping so I do just that.

Of course, sleeping can only last you so long.

Authors note

I know what you're going to say, but let me explain. So things have been fairly crazy, I had a death in the family ( don't feel sorry it was weeks ago ) and we've had such a crazy amount of snow that I haven't found time for writing and when I was writing I was wishing I could just stop, which is not really an attitude I like to write with.

But I'll try to be back now, this is a short chapter but it wraps up the Beras campaign and actually transitioned into sniper school. I know how long actual sniper school lasts but I'm using the excuse that they need these guys in the field now, so Winters is officially a sniper now and he won't be as reckless and stupid as he was in the last two chapters. You're welcome.

Anyway that's gonna wrap this one up, I hope to see you guys in the reviews section as reviewing helps my story improve.

Read on

-Rsk


	4. Assassins

Chapter IV: Assassins

Specialist Kevin Winters

9th Ranger Battalion, UNSC

Earth, Sol System

December 24th 2534, UNSC Calendar

Months have passed since my last deployment, it seemed like there is nothing better to do than drink and head around the Red District in New Alexandria, but ONI apparently had other ideas. Technically speaking an Army Ranger is a special operator, and I'm still surprised I was assigned this mission, I figured some ODST sniper would easily be able to replace me but apparently I had the wrong impression. Maybe it's because I'm more expendable than an ODST.

ONI told me to keep my mouth shut about the mission, as it would probably have certain diplomatic repercussions that would not exactly go in our favor if they were released. Apparently in other news the UNSC _Spirit of Fire_ was KIA, which doesn't exactly increase morale, which is part of my mission.

Basically what I was told is that there is a certain son of a bitch who's job is to move around the UNSC fleet, and he is constantly stacking up our best, and only our best ships around Reach and Earth, which is causing us to lose more Naval battles than we count.

So of course they want him dead.

I look around me at the city I stand in.. Baltimore had always been known for riots, uprisings, and brutality but now it was about to be known for targeted killings. At this point I start to feel like ONI's puppet, sure it's my job but they'll probably assign me to kill some other monkey's that they're done toying with.

I sit on top of a large building with a golden top, I open up my suitcase and assemble my sniper rifle, checking the sights and chamber to make sure it would pull off the shot. I glance over at Frank Holzhy, my best friend as of now. He is sitting down, assembling his spotter and his wind gauge, though if the wind is under five miles per hour my bullet wouldn't even need to account for wind.

I set up my rifle on the edge of the roof, Holzhy does the same as we look for the target, easily spotting the white haired man wearing a Navy uniform. I decide to take a headshot, might as well make it look good, right?

I suck in a breath and time seems to slow as my finger wraps around the trigger, I hear a loud bang and I feel the butt of the rifle pounding into the pocket of my shoulder. I watch the man's head pop like a watermelon, spraying the ground and people around him with crimson blood.

"Merry Christmas, Commander." I say under my breath.

We quickly pack up while people below begin to flock to the scene, we then get off the roof as sirens begin to wail, a Police Pelican begins to sweep the buildings, searching for the sniper. By the time the police are on scene we are far away from our perch.

It's pretty easy to spot the ONI agent we were assigned, the smile on his face says 'good job' but it feels like a death sentence. "You boys did good, you're being deployed to Jericho IV, same deal but with an Innie this time.. Don't let us down." He says before telling us the rest of his instructions.

Everything about this man reads 'spook', his combed black hair and suit with a small rose tucked over his heart, his pants have an obvious place in them to keep a loaded weapon, probably a conventional magnum. Though he is shorter than I am, he still intimidates me.

A couple of months later we are informed that we are ready for departure, the journey would only take a few days on an ONI Prowler, a nice tiny and fast stealth ship.

We board the ship at the Miami spaceport Cape Canaveral, which used to be a nice port for cruise and supply boats, now refurbished for space ships.

Only a few days later we are on a small hill overlooking the Innie base at about midnight, it's pretty obvious where it is from the guards standing around the door. This time our target wouldn't just be walking out into the open, we'd have to be stealthy. ONI had thought of everything, they had given us this small device, telling us only to use it once. The device is basically an EMP, or electro magnetic pulse, and it would hopefully affect the Innie technology inside for about half an hour, but that's plenty of time to find a dead man.

I watch Holzhy press the trigger on the device, the lights to the base don't even flicker as they black out completely. We turn on our night vision, one of the modules in our helmets before approaching the confused guards. I grab the small SOCOM magnum provided to me by our handler before firing two shots, watching the guards drop cleanly, their weapons resting at their sides.

We slip into the compound and look around, blackout patrols had started, you could tell why the Innies had lasted so long here. We spot a small light about to come around the corner, I shove Holzhy into a crook in the wall, I am forced to squeeze in with him alas the patrol walks past, whispering quietly amongst themselves.

We move in the direction the patrol had come from, silently navigating the halls to try to find our target.

We often slip into corridors to avoid detection, literally hundreds of Innies must've been sitting around, the reflection of their guns often glares off of sun peaking through cracks in the wall.

The EMP had worked fairly well, even the ammo counters on their MA5's had turned off, a part of me hopes that it would keep working for just a little longer, as we have lost track of time.

We finally find the General's office, marked by Insurgent flags, marking the symbol of the Jericho resistance, we slip inside and close the door behind us, locking it tightly. I keep my aim forward as I walk around, my eyes flicking around to find the general. My night vision HUD helps me find the man easily, I find him hiding under one of the beds, I grab a fistful of his shirt and drag him out.

"Reaper Lima Tango." I say quietly into my radio, a Lima Tango referring to 'located target.'

"Copy that, bring him in alive if you can". The operator says. Suddenly the lights flicker back on, the General opens his mouth to say something but I cover his mouth with my hand.

"Frank, get a cloth or something to gag this fuck with." I say to him quietly, he searches around before tearing off a strip of bedsheets, using his knife to secure it. I take it and push the thickest part of the cloth into his mouth before tying it around the back of his head.

I walk around him and move my hand from his shirt to his shoulder, wrapping my arm around his neck and positioning his body in front of mine, pulling him against me and pressing my SOCOM against his head.

"Now, you're going to turn your head to the direction that is the fastest way out of here, if you lead us to a patrol I will make sure ONI cuts the webbing between each one of your fingers before giving you the most painful death imaginable to any human being, nod if you understand me." I say to him quietly.

He nods.

Frank walks over to the door and unlocks it, opening it up to reveal a clear hallway. I push out first, positioning myself so that my left side is covered by the General and my SOCOM is aimed at the right side, finding it clear.

"Which way?" I ask, he turns his head to the right, nodding to that side. I motion for Frank to follow as we start walking, Frank walks behind me, covering my six. I look around the corner, finding a straight and very clear hallway.

It's almost a little too clear. I bite the inside of my cheek softly, this feels like a trap. I start walking, my SOCOM still against the head of the General, my eyes flick around for any... Traps. The word comes into my mind as a thin wire reflects off of the lights under me.

"Step over it motherfucker." I say to him, literally guiding his legs over the wire, I signal Frank about the wire before stepping over it myself, my eyes on the ground to check for anything else, luckily for us there is nothing.. At least in this hallway.

I move in conjunction with the man, making sure that I am covered by his body, knowing that the Innies would not risk the life of their leader for a single Ranger, the strategy would have to be to point so many guns at us that we are forced to surrender, or die by the gun.

And that's pretty much what happened next. We turn around the corner to see around fifty rifles pointed at us, the men forming tight rows to block the whole hallway.

"Let him go!" One of the Innies, obviously the leader calls out, I know that if I drop him they'll probably just shoot me anyway.

"Let us through or he dies." I simply say, pressing the SOCOM tighter against the mans skull. "The price for insurgency is death, but we aren't looking to kill this man." I say.

"Bullshit, you'll execute him the second you're back in UNSC territory." The leader snarls, taking a step closer.

"One more step and his brains are on the wall." I say casually.

He takes a step, so I pull the trigger, watching the sail of crimson fly out of the mans head, splattering the wall to my right with his blood and brains. A shot flies past me and hits Frank.. But something's off, arcs of electricity jump around him as he releases a strangled cry, collapsing on to his knees before falling back.

I point my magnum and start wildly firing, I feel two of the electric rounds punch into my armor, nearly making me scream as I fall back, my muscles spasming from the electricity.

I fall unconscious and I don't wake up for what seems like days, when I wake up I am in a cell, I sit in what appears to be an old high security prison.

"He's awake."

"About time.."

I look up and see two men standing outside of my cell, both of them look unimpressed. One of them steps inside and grabs my arm, yanking me off of the bed.

"You bastards.. You honestly thought that the death of one leader would cripple us?" He asks me before lifting me up.

I have a small feeling that these guys aren't exactly against torture.

They sit me down on a small chair in a dark room, chaining my hands to the ceiling and tightening it so they were above my head.

"So what's your name?" I hear from behind me, I struggle to turn my head but I quickly find myself unable to.

"I doubt you care." I say, my voice raspy from not speaking for awhile.

"I like to know who I'm killing." The man says before stepping in front of me, an evil look an his eye. "Welcome to New Gullag, appropriately named after the notorious Russian military prison from the late 1960's." He says to me. "We're going to have fun here, you and I."

I feel my chest tighten, my arms starting to burn from being chained to the ceiling. "I just take orders, I have nothing for you." I say to him.

"But you do know the name of your ONI agent, the reasons behind the killing and you probably know something about what they're planning next." He says to me.

"I told you, I don't know anything." I say to him, my eyes locked with his.

He nods and walks over to a table in the corner of the room, grabbing something from it and showing it to me.. It's my helmet.

"Did you know these things are always recording?" He asks me softly, placing it on my lap. I try to move my legs to knock it off, but my feet are bound to the ground, the helmet cam stares up at me.

"Reaper 1-1, 84401-" I'm cut off by a direct punch to my nose, shaking the chair. I hope that the camera falls off but he has his free hand keeping it in place.

"Reaper? What's your real name?" He asks me.

"1-1 is my last name.." I say, the feeling of blood trickling down my nose all too real, it must be broken. He throws another punch to the side of my face, this time it connects with my eye, I feel it sealing shut.. This guy has a mean punch.

"Fine, we'll just start with what you know about the Office of Naval Intelligence." He says to me. "Do you really want to die for such a stupid cause?" He asks.

"You'll be dying for yours, fucker." I spit, blood starting to dribble into my mouth.

"We still have your friend, you're expendable." He says to me.

"He doesn't know as much as I do, he's just my partner." I say to him lowly. "If you want to take the chance you can go ahead, but I'm not saying shit." I say to him, my face now hanging down, staring at the camera.

He picks up the helmet and pulls the table into the light, placing the helmet back on to it. I look up at him, out of my good eye I can see him motioning to someone behind me.

My arms are unchained before being tied to the back of the chair, then the chair is tipped backwards, a cloth smashed on to my face. I start to smell gasoline, and then I'm drowning in it, I cough and gasp for air, they suffocate me until I nearly pass out, but they don't give me that pleasure.

I feel something blunt smashing into my kneecap, and I cry out, when the cloth is ripped from my face I see a sledgehammer.. And my bloodied knee. I feel myself vomiting, my bodily fluids dripping down my chin on to my UNSC Standard issue undersuit.

I feel myself slipping into darkness as I slip into unconsciousness for the second time today.

I wake up in my cell, pain rippling through my kneecap. I cough loudly, there is probably some parasite that is native to Jericho now infecting me, and I doubt the existence of a doctor here at New Gullag.

My eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, finding that I am completely alone in the cell, I lay on the stone floor, so I drag myself to the bed, climbing up slowly to avoid hurting my knee further. I feel around the bed for bedsheets, finding some easily and grunting as I try to tear the sheets, even though they are probably abnormally dirty.

With some strain the bedsheets tear, the makeshift bandage only covers three quarters of the wound, but I tie it around tightly, my eyes clenching shut as my knee explodes in pain.

My eyes adjust further, showing me a bottle of water and a loaf of bread on the ground by the door. I slither off the bed face first, using my arms to slide off the bed as to not strain my knee. I crawl over to the food, examining the bread and noticing a lot of mold and rot. But the water was worse, I could see the parasites swimming around in it.

"What the fuck.." I mumble to myself.

"If you want medical assistance and food, you should just tell them what you know." A voice says, I look up at a tall man with an Innie symbol on his shoulder.

"You don't understand.." I say to him before moving myself back, planting my ass on to the ground and looking up at him.

"I do understand, you have something they want and you won't give it up." He says. "But why? What has the UNSC done for you?" He asks me.

"They help fight off the Covenant for one thing." I say to him.

"The Covenant is a myth bud, open your eyes." He says. "They just use it as a scare tactic." He says to me.

I start laughing, he looks at me skeptically. I pull my undersuit up so that he can see my side, an old burn wound scarred there. "That's from a plasma rifle, I've seen the Covenant with my own eyes, they're making their way towards Reach." I say to him.

"How can I tell if you're lying?" He asks, obviously bored with what he thinks are lies.

"I have an entire campaign on my helmet camera." I say to him. "You could watch it, that's information I can't keep." I explain.

"What about ONI? What're they doing to stop this?" He asks.

"They research alien technology." It wasn't a wrong answer, but it's obviously not the classified information the man is trying to pull from me.

"Like what?" He asks patiently.

I just shrug. "Do your General's tell you the exact positions of their ships when they move them? Or tell you the position of every innie soldier in the outer rim?" I ask. "No, because you're a grunt, just like me, I get orders and I follow them." I say to the man.

"Enjoy the bread." He simply says before walking off, a set of keys jingling from his belt.

I crawl back to the bed, refusing to eat the bread. I fall asleep quickly, exhausted from just talking.. I can feel my body getting weaker.

I am woken by someone hitting the door with something metal . "Time to wake up! Hard labour time!" A voice yells before I am awake. I remember my parents yelling at me for sleeping in when I am meant to be going to school. I can't even imagine what they'd do to if I didn't get up.

I get out of bed, my knee screaming at me as I do. I hobble to the front of the cell, where I loop my arm through the door to remain standing. The Innie from the night before walks over, eyeing me.

"I need a doctor.." I say to him quietly.

"You need to tell us first." He says to me, still wanting my secrets.

"Whatever information I am holding will expire if I'm killed by an infection." I say to him. "If you honestly want information this isn't the way of going about it."

He thinks for a moment before walking off, coming back with two men, one wears a medical band around his arm. The other looks like the man who tortured me, or at least his figure, this man has a sizable scar on his left cheek, making him look dangerous and threatening in some way.

I step away from the bars and I sit down, my bedsheet covered wound showing off to the medic outside of the door.

I hear the door click and the medic walks inside, I now notice her more feminine figure. She grabs a medkit from her back pouch, opening it and grabbing a small bottle from it, this medkit looked like it was from the twenty first century, no bio foam, bio gel, or any automatic stitchers at all. But she is trained to use it.

I furrow my eyebrows when she holds the small bottle over my wound, she looks up at me before speaking softly. "This will hurt." Before pouring a little on to my wound, I clench my fists, kind of wishing she put it on a towel or something before applying it. She grabs a roll of bandages from her kit, tearing off a size able bandage before wrapping it carefully around my knee, sealing the gaps with medical tape.

She starts to put her kit away, I look at her and speak. "Thank you.." I say to her quietly, it is a genuine thanks, I just can't get the thought through my head that she is the enemy, though it is her job to be like this..

I spend the day resting in my cell, early next morning when my food arrives, the medic is there putting it through the door. So far I had gone three days without eating, only drinking water that is half purified. And by that I mean I pour the water on my shirt and suck it through the bottom, hoping it gets rid of the solids floating around in it.

The medic steps into my cell as if I am an animal, closing the door behind her before offering me the loaf of bread, but this one isn't rotten, it looks as if it is an actual meal. I eat it so fast she probably has confirmed doubts that I'm losing it.

"Why are you doing this for me?" I ask her, looking up at her. "You don't owe me anything." Though I do kind've want her to continue, the food feels like heaven in my stomach.

"It's not fair what they're doing to the soldiers here." She simply says. "We hate you because ONI does awful things to prisoners, and now we're doing it, so where does it end?" She asks.

I bite the inside of my cheek and I nod. "Thanks." I say softly, watching her leave the cell, probably to avoid detection.

I feel a little better knowing that there is still some good left in this world. I look down at myself, what had once been pretty muscular now looked as if someone has sucked out all of my organs and flattened me, I am starting to become a skeleton from just a week here, though that week has felt like months.

A slightly annoyed though pops into my mind, about how expendable I must be to ONI if they aren't even willing to help me out here.

Today is the day I am actually thrown out of my cell to do hard labour, I hobble along next to two guards who don't seem to like their job, they walk me down several floors, this prison must be pretty far underground because I feel my ears starting to pop.

They lead me to a small area with several other inmates, all hacking away at a wall with pickaxes, yeah, actual pickaxes. It's like a throwback to the early days, they must either be low on funds or they have no need to get this wall dug out quickly, they probably just like to watch physically and mentally exhausted by the end of the work.

My arms are numb and my leg begins to hurt again by the end of the work shift, I am led back to my cell where I sit for awhile, the medic returns and walks into the cell, sitting down next to me before taking off her helmet, which had blocked me from seeing her face before.

Her brown hair falls like a waterfall, cascading down her back before hanging loosely and casually, some strands around her face from not being taken care of. She looks at me with warm chocolate eyes, a small nose and face, in a short word she is beautiful, I had never even thought of the faces on the other side of those helmets.

"Helmet blocks my vision." She explains quickly before checking out my leg, replacing the bandages and such, she couldn't say much else since the guard is watching. I watch her leave, I watch her put that helmet back on and walk away, escorted by several guards.

I think to myself, how would I get out of here? It could take days, hell, if ONI doesn't get off their asses it could take years which I'm not personally okay with.

With that, I get planning.

Authors note

So here it is, I made it a little longer than the last one because I wanted to show off some assassin stuff while also throwing him into the Gullag.. Or ehm, New Gullag, he'll escape next time I promise. If you don't like the whole assassin deal I can just stop, it was an idea I wanted to toy with, so that he could show off some skill to ONI and all of that, but worry not he's still a Ranger so there will be more Covenant fighting.

Thanks for reading, follow for more, favorite it if you're really digging the story and let me know what you think in the review section.

Read on

-Rsk


	5. Numb Feet

Chapter V: Numb Feet

Specialist Kevin Winters

9th Ranger Battalion, UNSC

Jericho VII, Lambda Serpentis system

February 10th, 2535, UNSC Calendar

A whole month in this hell hole. How do I know? The guard tends to remind me of how weak and useless I am, how ONI hasn't even bothered to come looking for me. I'll admit, it's starting to get to me. But even the small rations and back breaking labour haven't kept me out of shape, I do a daily routine of push-ups and sit-ups, pull ups if I can find a place to do them. My knee has healed nicely, the wound from the torture only a memory of the past, the medic still visits me often, she often tells me small things about her, like her name is Cindy. She's the only thing keeping me on two feet.

Because of my decision to exercise but not eat the diseased food I am offered, I have become a muscular skeleton, my rib cage peeks through my chest, my stomach a pit. My arms are like twigs, I swear that the only thing keeping them from falling off is the exercise. I run a hand down my face as the guard steps inside my cell, probably to drag me out for labour or torture. They had recorded every session, but I haven't given them anything as of yet.

"Take a good look at this cell Kevin, it's the last time you'll see it." The guard says to me, a look in his eyes tells me that he isn't talking about me being released.

"Execution is for traitors, I've done nothing wrong." I say to him flatly, my voice raspy from little use.

"Maybe you've done nothing by UNSC standards, but the UEG as decided your actions against our forces are deemed inexcusable." He explains to me. "It also doesn't help that you don't tell us what we want." He says to me.

I am taken from my cell, which has become my home over the past month, a place of safe haven for me, a place where I can see Cindy.. Apparently I'm not the only one getting executed, I spot Frank out of the corner of my eye, I hadn't seen him the entire time we've been here. But there's more prisoners, it seems as if they are covering up their tracks.. But that means the UNSC is here..

Or the Covenant.

For the first time in around a month, I see the sun peeking over the horizon.. They walk us out of the entrance into an area that reminds me of a sewer, pretty much because it's a giant pit with water at the bottom. The Innies behind us bare their arms, aiming the weapons at us.

"For crimes against the UEG Defense Forces, you are all guilty, sentence is death!" One of them yells. "You can try to jump, but you will die if you do, or you will be shot." He says. "Now is the time to choose!" He raises one hand, completely open.

"Five!" He yells.

"Four!" Is he serious?

"Three!" This is where it ends..

"Two!" I jump.. The wind whips past my face as I spot the other soldiers following my example. I put my arms to my side and I go in feet first, completely straight. I feel myself hit the water.. It's basically like skydiving on to a pile of bricks. But I'm alive.

A bullet streaks through the water past my face, snapping me back to reality. I start swimming, I can see the entrance to some underground area ahead of me. I look to my right and I watch as a prisoner is shot, a cloud of red surrounds him as he floats to the top.

I make it to the shore, another bullet whizzes past and I cough, struggling to breathe as I begin to awkwardly run into the tunnel ahead of me, my head turning to see others following my example. We still wear the destroyed shoes and prisoner clothing they had given us as we run into the tunnel. Only two hadn't made it, around thirty now stand in the tunnel, but it's not over yet.

We split up, as there's so many different ways to go. We start jogging, noticing a line of old train tracks next to us, probably here when we had started colonizing Jericho VII. My feet begin to beg for me to stop jogging, my lungs scream for air but I trek on, if they had come down after us, who knows how far behind they are.

My eyes readjust to the darkness, my feet stop jogging as I can no longer feel them. I cough again, resting my hand against the wall to my right, my head looking down as I gasp for air.

Another prisoner puts my arm around his neck and we start moving again, keeping up that steady jog that we had learned to maintain in boot camp. But all of that training seems to have disappeared, every once in awhile someone would start crying or vomiting, these men had been broken.

I can feel my knee wound starting to reopen, even after a month the nasty wound had still been hurting. It seems that we are trapped walking in the same direction for hours, maybe days? The time doesn't seem to change, it's just always darkness. Ahead we see something new, a layer of light resting against the tunnel wall.

We start to run for the light, all of us covering our eyes as the sun greets us again.. This time as free men. Some of us fall to our knees, others start looking around, an oasis sits ahead, we all sprint to it, collapsing in the spring, washing ourselves, stuffing our mouths with as much water that will go down.

It's almost like the first clean water we've ever received. The other prisoners wander out into the light, the ones we had split up with. They dash to the oasis and we greet them, this is definitely a good start.

To make things better, the roar of engines sounds over head of us, a Pelican hovering over head. It touches down next to the oasis, the symbol of the United Nations Space Command blazing brightly on the hull. A man in a clean suit walks out, raising his eyebrows at the ragtag group.

"Well.. Where the hell have you been?" He asks, all we can do is laugh as he helps us board the Pelican. We are transported to the nearest hospital, they immediately get to work on us, our wounds and malnutrition would be healed within a few days, if not one day. An ONI officer walks in and spots me, sitting down next to me and tapping his fingers against a clipboard.

"We saw the videos." He says to me quietly. "You were very strong Winters, on the behalf of the Office of Naval Intelligence, I would like to thank you for your strength." He says before showing me the paper, it's a letter. I take it and I read it.

 _Specialist Kevin Winters_

 _Your bravery and strength while under the control of the enemy is unmatched, any information you could've given them would have been sensitive to our cause, because of this strength we will be keeping an eye on you, possibly to recommend you for an experiment we are conducting. For now, enjoy your promotion to Master Specialist._

 _Admiral Serin Osman, Assistant Director_.

I bite the inside of my cheek softly before nodding, looking up at my handler. "Thank you sir." I say to him, feeling accomplished, even though I'm not exactly prepared to be an NCO, now I'm just a rank below being Corporal, just an insane thought to dwell on.

The man stands and walks out, leaving me to my own devices. So I decide to sleep.

The next day I wake, I am being shaken..

"Winters, wake the fuck up!" Someone yells into my ear, I jump and look, it's Holzhy.

"What's going on?!" I demand after sitting up, already noticing some improvement in my health, though not fully restored.

"Just don't ask questions and get this shit on." He says before handing me my undersuit which I put on immediately, then the pieces of my armor. He is already fully dressed. Finally he shoves a BR-55 and helps me out of bed, we jog to the front of the hospital, it's pretty easy to see what's wrong.

In the sky is a massive battle between UNSC and Covenant ships. The UNSC easily outnumbers the Covenant.. But they're still losing.

We start running, a Warthog is ready for us. "Where're we going?" I yell to him, he points ahead, at the evacuation zone. We drive to the zone and immediately start covering the civilians getting on to drop ships. Several enemy drop ships start to fly in, aliens jumping off on to the ground.

The Marines who were here to begin with engage the aliens, putting themselves between the Covenant forces and the civilians. Apparently the invasion had been going on since this morning.

I switch the BR-55 in my hands to single fire before taking shots at any Covenant I can kill with a single shot, so the Jackals and Grunts are the first to go. We jump off the Warthog and run into the evacuation zone, which is a spaceport, as it usually is. Two Marines close the gates behind us. I run inside and I walk over to one of the transports, which has people slowly walking on to it.

"Move it! Let's go!" I yell and they start to move faster, basically throwing themselves on to the transport at this point. I keep my helmet polarized so that nobody could see my still healing face, give them some hope that the UNSC here has top shape soldiers.

Holzhy and I move out of the spaceport and board the Warthog again, this time driving with a target in mind. We drive straight for the Gullag, as it had been shown on our way out. When we arrive we notice the amount of Insurrectionists that are trying to leave, we get in their way immediately, aiming weapons at the whole lot in a large truck.

I fire a single round into the head of the driver, the passenger forces the truck to a stop. "Get your people out!" I yell to the passenger, still aiming at him.

He jumps out of the truck and runs around to the back, getting people out of the truck. We start to herd them away from the truck, eventually they all sit on their knees.

"My name is Master Specialist Kevin Winters!" I yell to them. "The price to pay for Insurgency within UNSC territory is death." I say as I walk along the line, looking for faces I recognize.

"Everybody huddle into a circle." I say cooly, watching them fulfill my task before I grab a hand grenade from my side, pulling the pin and tossing it into the middle of them all.

Any of them who runs is shot immediately. The grenade goes off, there will be no survivors. Another truck speeds in our direction, the driver is shot once again. When the people in the back are unloaded, I notice the medical patches on their shoulders. I fire a single round into the only soldier remaining in the group before turning my attention to the medical team.

"Is anybody else inside?" I ask, they all shake their heads.. We must've missed the command team. "Take your uniforms off, throw away any gear and get into the truck." I say to them.

I walk over to the driver side and I pull the body from the seat, watching it limply hit the ground, giving off a low thud.

Frank and I mount up, starting to drive.

"Why aren't we killing them, Kevin?" He asks, his eyebrows raised.

"They've done nothing wrong, they aren't soldiers." I say to him. What I don't tell him is my debt to repay, I hadn't looked closely, but I am sure Cindy is among the group. I take a piece of paper and pen from the dash, scribbling something down on it before shoving it into my webbing, completely crumpled.

We get to the space port and we dismount, walking to the back and helping them out, they all look like normal civilians. As they pass we tell them never to return to the Insurgency, they would be treated as refugees.

They seem terrified, as if their suspicions that the Covenant is real have finally been proven.

When Cindy passes I depolarize my helmet and I crumple the paper into her hand, giving her a short nod. She disappears into the spaceport. I polarize my helmet again before returning to guard the spaceport, I watch the transports lift up into the sky.

I'm not religious, but I hear myself praying in my head... _Please keep her safe_... I walk over to a group of soldiers who are getting into a Pelican and I board with them. I look over.. In one of the seats sits a Spartan, his armor green and his visor a light orange.

On his arm sits his rank, Master Chief Petty Officer, I was never one to disbelieve UNSC propaganda but I had doubted the existence of super soldiers.

Now one sits next to me.

We fly to a UNSC controller Forward Operating Base, soldiers below scurry around like little ants until we get closer, that's when we can see what is happening. While the healthy and fit around us are preparing for battle the wounded are building the FOB, signaling that the UNSC is running out of men. Jericho is a lost cause, and everybody here knows it.

I walk to the armory and I grab my regular kit, my SRS and ammo with some more mags for my BR-55 and magnum. I take my helmet off for a moment and I run a shaky hand through my hair. I grab some fragmentation grenades to fill up spare space, though I doubt I will be needing them.

I meet Frank in the developing courtyard of the FOB and we start walking out, tuning our comm to the battalion's network. As we leave I turn as a voice behind me draws my attention.

"Mind if I join you, Specialist?" The Spartan is walking up behind us.

"Sure thing." I say, eyeing the sniper rifle in his hands. "You're sniper trained, yeah?" I ask.. _What a stupid thing to say..._

 _"_ Of course." The Spartan says as we start walking again. He seems to be a man of few words. We eventually hit the urban part of Jericho, the part that doesn't contain the fields of waving grass and farmland. Gunfire and explosions sound off in the distance, reminding me that this city is not what it used to be.

Our three man team climbs a whole lot of stairs to get to the rooftop access for one of the taller buildings, from there it was roof to roof, using ladders or just jumping if it came to it. A voice crackles on to the radio.

"This is Corporal Ramos from the Second Infantry Division, we've come under heavy Covenant fire, any support units please respond." He says before I access my HUD, marking his position before starting a jog to the enemy position.

That Spartan, 117, he seems to be able to jog for miles because by the time we are there I'm tired out and he's just getting started. Hopefully my shooting skills wouldn't be put to shame by this super soldier, but I'm having sneaking suspicions that he's better than I am.

I set up my rifle and I look around, watching plasma bolts flying at a small parking garage, that's where the Second ID is. I move my rifle to the Covenant position, scanning along the lines of Grunts, Jackals, and Elite Minor's for any alien that would have command, as it wasn't really an Elite's style to stay out of combat.

There.. I spot an Elite with armor I've never seen before, my eyebrows knit together in concentration as I target it.

"You see that Elite, Specialist?" The Spartan asks.

"Yessir, can you identify it?" I ask him quietly.

"That's an Arbiter, very important and very powerful Elite." He says as he targets it. "It'll take two shots from both of us to its head to kill it, fire off two quick shots on my mark." He says.

I scope in to the Elite's head, sucking in a breath before breathing out, once my lungs have been deflated I hold my breath.

"Now." He says.

I squeeze the trigger twice, feeling the butt of my rifle pound into the pocket of my arm as I do so. I watch the two supersonic shots fly directly into the head of the Elite, and then another two, literally splitting open the alien's head.

"You can have that kill Specialist." The Spartan says before standing up, seemingly expecting us to do the same thing.

Frank and I both get up and start our jog back to the building we started, marking that as our home base for now. Once we get back we set up a sniper nest, watching the streets below for any enemies that decided to show up.

My eyes flick to another transport rising up, the thought occurs to me that Cindy could be on that one.. I immediately remove that thought when a glob of plasma slams into the bottom of the transport, melting the titanium plating. I watch as several civilians fall through, waving their arms frantically as they fall into the spaceport below. From here they look like ants falling from a tree.

I refocus on the streets below, the Spartan starts to speak. "I saw you extracting that group of civilians, who were they?" He asks.

"Do you want me to be honest, Chief?" I ask him.

I see him nod out of the corner of my eye before I take off my helmet, looking over at him. "Innies had them as prisoners, working as doctors for them, I know because I was held prisoner there, none of them ever wanted to hurt us." I explain to him.

"So they were Innies?" He asks.

"Doctors." I say before putting my helmet back on, going back to looking at the street.

"Ah, you must be the helmet camera guy, I thought I recognized your face." He says, still looking over at me.

"What of it?" I ask as my sights lay on a patrol of Jackal Skirmishers.

"I just thought it was interesting that someone with only special forces training wouldn't break over such a long time, the average operative would last about two weeks under the conditions you were in." He explains.

"The doctor I saved helped me, she kept me company.. Gave me food, clean water, helped treat my wounds." I explain.

"And you were in there for the assassination of an Innie UEG General?" He asks, as if he was looking me up as we speak.

"Are you staring at my file or something?" I ask.

"Well, before you escaped we figured we had a day before the Covenant arrived so might as well rescue some operatives, but you did that on your own." He says.

"They were trying to execute us, cover their tracks." I say quietly. I squeeze the trigger, the tallest of the Jackals gets a bullet straight to the head. The Jackals scatter, I calmly move my scope from one after the other, reloading every four shots.

"So wait, you knew when the Covenant was coming?" Frank asks him.

"Of course, how do you think the UNSC amassed so many ships?" He asks.

"I wish they had brought in more infantry.." He says.

"Well they brought in a battalion of Marines and the Colonial Militia is still here, so that's around three battalions." He explains.

"And that's not nearly enough to take on the Covenant, we won on Beras because we overwhelmed them so badly that we crushed them under our boot." Frank says dryly.

"Our goal is to save as many civilians as possible." The Spartan says before standing. "We should probably go somewhere that we are more useful." He says before walking towards the stairwell.

We just follow, still unsure that this super soldier was all that they are said to be. He stops for a moment before marking an area on our map, he had marked the ONI building.

"Covenant forces have taken an interest in this building, so we're going in to secure any ONI intel that we can find." He says before continuing to walk, switching to a BR-55 he had on his back.

I do the same, playing with the calibrator on my scope as we walk closer to the ONI tower. When we arrive we climb down the rooftop we had been walking on, going down to the street level.

A Covenant patrol stands between us and the building, a whisper comes into our radio. "Fifth Marines, second company, fourth squad, standing by to attack the building."

"On my mark." The Spartan says while lifting up his BR-55, we watch and wait, the patrol moves a little closer together as a Jackal begins to sniff the air, as if it knows we are here.

"Now." 117 says before we're engaging, the patrol has no time to cry out as a wall of lead hits them from all sides, killing every alien with precision. "Storm the building." The Spartan says.

We start to run inside, I watch the Spartan throw his BR-55 over his back, grabbing two small SMG's from his side and holding them akimbo style. I watch in awe as he takes on several Elite's, I don't fire for fear of shooting the friendly so I watch as he runs at the line of aliens, spraying the tiny guns in his hands like the recoil is nothing. He throws the guns away and slides on to the floor, grabbing an energy sword and activating it before stabbing it straight up into an Elite's mouth, making its body limp.

An Elite sneaks behind him, firing a plasma bolt straight into the back of his head, something that would normally melt Titanium and kill the human underneath. His body glows as if he has a shield like the Elite's do, the alien almost looks dumbstruck as the Spartan whips around, slashing through its chest.

I get a clear shot and I put one in the head and two in the chest to an Elite minor, who falls dead, purple blood leaking from its armor. We follow John to the stairs where he does a scan, someone must be telling him the areas where the intel is located.

"Spartan, what're you doing?" I ask him.

"My AI is telling me where the intel is located." He says dryly before walking up the stairs.

I've heard of handheld AI before, but never a smart one, they are usually dumb AI's with no other purpose other than managing a house or car.

We make our way up to the fourth floor, where the Spartan finds a room full of computers and holo-pads, he places down a block of C12 on every wall before grabbing a small disc from his side, placing it next to the mainframe computer.

"Download everything." He says as a blue woman appears, must be the AI he had been talking about.

We defend the room while they do their thing, luckily no aliens really disturb us. He walks out about five minutes later before pointing at some video footage of the lobby.

"We can't go back the way we came, we're going to the roof.. The aliens must've gotten through the Fifth." He says before starting to climb the stairs.

I think the best thing about old fashioned stairs is that Elite's can't climb them with those jointed legs. We climb every stair to the top, we are exhausted by the time we're done but the Spartan never skips a beat, never tires out.

We reach the top, and it's pretty obvious that this is a last stand. I look down at the streets below, a mob of aliens is making their way into the main building. The Spartan presses a small detonator, the building shakes as the room belles is obliterated, giving us a little bit more time.

"This is Reaper to any units in the air, we need immediate high priority pickup at position 010057." I say over the radio, waiting for a response.

"Reaper, what is the priority for?" I hear.

"We have precious ONI information and a Spartan with us, over." I say.

"Well damn, that is high priority, give me five minutes." He says before the connection terminates.

"Nothing takes five minutes.." Frank mutters to himself, I silently agree as I get into a position to shoot at the stairway.

I hear the sound of a jump jet, I turn in time to see a Spec Ope Elite, he lands on the building and growls at me before deploying its energy sword.

I switch my BR-55 to full auto, peppering the alien as it walks towards me, my gun clicks empty and his shields aren't even down. 117 runs to the Elite, slamming his titanium clad fist into the Elite's face. I watch the shield break and a couple teeth from its mandibles clatter to the ground.

I grab my sniper rifle from my back, fall on to my shoulder and firing a shot straight into the Elite's face.

The Spartan looks confused as he looks down at me, as if not used to being saved. "Thanks." He says before walking over to the edge, looking down at the aliens below. He grabs a block of C12 from his webbing, attaching a detonator before dropping it. It falls to the crowd of aliens and explodes, leaving a large hole in the lines.

The Pelican arrives, hovering close to the edge, we would have to jump. Frank jumps first, his feet hitting the platform. I hear a plasma shot fire from the stairway, I had just been about to jump. My back is turned to the alien who fired, but I can feel the punch from the shot hit the center of my back.

I slip and then I'm falling, my arms scrambling to find purchase as I watch the Pelican above me become smaller..

 _So this is how it ends_...

Authors Note

Haven't uploaded in a week or so, but hey, I'm not on a schedule for this so we're good. I didn't really want a love story, but I did want something with conflict on a personal scale.. So a love life usually does that, especially with an enemy soldier. I'm not trying to write one of _those_ fanfictions so there's not gonna be any sex or anything, I gave it the M rating in case I get yelled at for language.. So no Cortana x Master Chief sexy time, sorry.

Speaking of the Chief, I read that he participated in the Battle of Jericho VII and I got really excited to integrate him, but I probably won't be doing it again, I also hope you enjoyed the prison sequence, I like to ruin my character's mentality sometimes.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter, review, favorite, and follow for more.

Read on

-Rsk


	6. Fall of Jericho VII

Chapter VI: Fall of Jericho

Specialist Kevin Winters

9th Ranger Battalion, UNSC

Jericho VII, Lambda Serpentis system

February 10th, 2535, UNSC Calendar

Falling probably would be scarier if I didn't have my Ranger jump pack. I tap the small of my back before activating the pack, lining myself up with the building. I start to run down the side of the building, stabilizing myself with my pack every so often when I get close to the crowd below me, a blanket of plasma weapons and enemies await me. I go full throttle, flying straight into the window of another building.

I hit the window, rolling forward as glass shatters all around me. I break into a full on sprint, another window ahead of me.

I fucking hate windows..

I activate my pack, flying straight through again, doing a somersault as I hit the polycrete, I see a web of cracks in my visor, but at this point I could care less.

"Chief, I'm updating you with my position!" I yell into my radio, turning and firing a burst at a Spec Ops Elite that followed me. I run again, my boots slapping against the road beneath me as I go in a dead on sprint.

I probably could keep doing the jet pack thing, but the Elite's have better jet packs and better training, so they would just follow me. I hear the roar of a Pelican above me, I activate my jet pack again, my eyes go wide as I notice the fucking ramp is still closed. I hit the top of the bird and I hang on for dear life.

"Fucking go!" I yell, turning and firing another burst at the Elite's below, they all start to fly up.

I feel the bird start to move under me, causing me to slide towards the back. With some quick thinking I grab a small hook from my webbing, normally used for repelling. With my adrenaline fueled strength I slam the hook into the hull, getting it to barely stick. It would last long enough to do some thinking.

I grab the repel rope from my webbing, taking a breath as I let go of the hook, my back slamming into the back fin of the plane, I tie myself to the large top wing, sighing in relief.

"I'm secure.." I say over the radio, luckily we're just headed back to the FOB.

We land at the FOB and I jump down, using my pack to dampen the effects of my feet hitting the ground.

"You're crazy." Holzhy says with the shake of his head, his hand reaching up and touching the cracks of my helmet.

"I'm the right kind of crazy." I say before pulling off my helmet, running my gloved hand down my face.

"Get ready to go back out, I'm turning in the intelligence and then Command apparently has a new initiative, now that the civilians are out." The Chief says.

All three of us walk back to the armory, restocking ourselves appropriately. We walk out and walk into the briefing tent, basically this giant tent for commanders, leaders, and lone wolves in the field as trying to fit the entirety of the UNSC forces inside of this tent would be practically impossible.

Of course, two snipers and a Spartan need their briefing. However the Spartan quickly leaves our presence, finding several other Spartans in the crowd and stands by them.

The camp's Commander stands in front of us, his hands behind his back as his eyes look at all of the leaders. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you could probably tell, we're in desperate need of a frontal assault against Covenant forces." He says, several squad leaders nod in approval. "We've taken some light casualties, but the civilians that made it are out of the system and on their way to Reach, giving us absolute authority to tear the enemy apart with everything we've got." He says. "That also involves the use of a MAC cannon, as we have realized the Covenant ships outmatch us, our Navy has retreated to the far side of the planet, at this point we have no doubt that this planet will fall to the enemy." He says, nobody reacts, we all know the simple facts of the war.

"However! If they're going to destroy our planet, we're going to make it fucking hard on them." He says. "We've already taken out an Arbiter, according to John-117, and we have a platoon of Spartans plus three divisions of UNSC troops battle hardened and ready, we're taking the fight to these bastards." He explains.

"So here's the plan. We're going in hard and fast, Marines and regular Army personnel will be tasked with taking control of the major population centers around us, Special Operators such as the Rangers, 109th Jet and Spartans will be destroying their ground to air turrets set up all around the city, if possible take control of our defense turrets, take some shots at incoming enemy transports." He says to us. "Kill as many as you can, there's no Geneva convention to stop us here." He growls, we all nod and get moving.

One of the female Spartans walk up behind us, the rest of her platoon and the Chief behind her, I hear her laugh. "Four of us and a thousand of them? Piss poor odds for the little guys." She says.

I feel a tap on my shoulder, I turn to see the Chief there.

"You coming with us?" He asks, I imagine his eyebrows being raised behind that visor.

"Sure." I say to him, starting to walk with the group.

"While we do need two snipers, Kelly over there is the top sniper of the UNSC, so I don't think you'll be scoring many kills on this one, Specialist." He says.

"Is that a challenge?" I ask him. "I don't need augmentations to be a good sniper bud." A grin flashes on to my face for a moment.

"Try to keep up.. Bud." One of the other Spartans says as they all start up a steady jog.

Holzhy and I jog with them, my Ranger training kicks me in the gut for wanting them to slow down. I keep up with them as we near the small fleet of Pelicans and other ships we have amassed on base. The Spartans hop on to the railing of a Hornet, we join them, strapping ourselves in to ensure we don't fall off.

The ship lifts off, starting at a nice speed towards our objectives. As we fly over the city, several bolts of plasma fly past us, almost like a deadly display of fire works.

I spot our personal objective, the Spartans would be deploying elsewhere and then we would meet up. I nod to Holzhy and we both unstrap ourselves, I turn to look at Kelly.

"Try to look this badass." I say while standing on the railing, jumping off backwards. I feel myself flipping in the air. I extend my arms and legs, leveling out almost immediately as I continue to fall.

I reach back and deploy my jet pack, how many meters? One thousand.. Eight hundred.. Six hundred.. I activate the pack, slowing myself down. My boot clad feet touch the ground gingerly, I grab the BR-55 from my back and I walk towards our objective, a massive ground to space cannon used as a planetary defense against Innies.. Or in this case, UNSC.

The men that had once operated this weapon lay dead around it, they are riddled with bullet holes. We pay no mind to them, Frank gets to making the cannon functional while I patrol around, looking for any Covenant forces.

"Cannon online."

"Online and ready to go."

"Third cannon operational."

I look back at Holzhy, he gives me a thumbs up. "Fourth cannon ready to go." I say.

"We're aiming for the Corvette and then any Phantoms that come in, aim the cannons." Chief says.

Frank turns the valve on the side of the cannon, they must've placed this here during the Rainforest Wars, it is really dated.

Once it is confirmed that everyone is aiming for the Corvette unloading troops in the distance, four magnificent _booms_ sound, four projectiles slam into the Corvette, literally tilting the ship away from us. It crashes to the ground, a giant explosion confirms that we had destroyed it and most, if not all of the forces it had unloaded.

"Fuck yeah!" I yell, punching the air as I watch Frank go to load another.

"Watch it Rangers, you've got a squad converging on your position." Kelly says.

"How do you know?" I ask. A gunshot in the distance answers my question as a cloaked Elite that had been moving in behind me falls and dies, it's blood splattering against my boot.

"Try being that badass." She says, causing me to bite the bottom of my lip.

"Thanks." I simply say before raising my weapon, a small patrol of Grunts, Elite's and Jackals are trotting towards us.

There're only two Elite's, both both are Major's, special operation Grunts are with them, about ten to be exact. To top it off three massive Jackal skirmishers are with them.

I fire off a burst, splattering the blood of a Grunt leader against its squad, but the experienced aliens don't even flinch.

"Frank, major problem!" I yell while firing again, a wall of plasma approaches me as I suck into the bunker.

I hear the aliens starting to stack up on the entrance, Frank and I hide behind the ammunition boxes, our rifles raised to the entrances. I pop in a fresh magazine for my BR-55, hearing a reassuring click that tells me my gun is ready to go.

I aim through the sight at the door, the Grunts are always first, experienced or not. They waddle their way inside, plasma pistols raised, speaking in their odd language.

We open up on them, using up both of our magazines just making sure the little bastards are dead. As we're reloading the Jackals rush in, Frank is able to pop off a shot and kill the one rushing him, but I am not so lucky.

The clawed hand closes around my windpipe, lifting me and slamming me into the wall, effectively winding me. I hear the Elite's coming inside, Frank cries out and I hear him fall..

My hand gravitates to my pistol, closing around the hilt. The Jackal kicks me lightly, as if checking if I'm alive.

I roll over, putting one into its head and two into its chest, the purple blood splatters on to my visor, but I don't care. I jump up and I throw the body of the Jackal at the two Elite's, an amazing feat of adrenaline fueled strength.

I fire off two shots, killing the Elite that Frank had injured, I point my magnum at the other, my magnum clicks and I throw it away, grabbing my knife and growling at him.

Did I just fucking growl?

I lunge at the Elite, I hear an energy sword deploy, razor sharp reflexes allow me to side step from the blade, my knife hand streaks downwards, hitting and splitting the shield of the Elite. The knife breaks the armor of its hand, the large blade slicing straight through it.

The large alien drops the energy sword and punches me right in the visor, causing the reinforced glass to crack. I stumble backwards, grabbing my helmet and throwing it off.

"Let's go bitch.." I say quietly, anger, adrenaline, and fear running through my body as I spin my knife in my hand. We walk in a slow circle, it's a standoff.. I could kill it with my knife, and it could kill me with a punch.

The Elite lunges forward, clumsily throwing a punch towards my unprotected head. I duck under the fist and let out a strangled cry as I stab the large knife straight through the Elite, holding it there while it dies. I let it fall to the ground in front of me.

I take a step back, falling on to my ass. I look over at where Holzhy had fallen.. I see him covered in blood and I know it can't be good for him. I get up slowly and I walk over to him, dropping to my knees beside him.

His face is covered in blood from where the two Elite's had smashed his visor, glass covers his wounds and I know he's not breathing..

I feel my hands trembling, I sit back and I run my bloodied hands through my hair. I reach over and grab my helmet, putting it on over my head before grabbing Frank's MA5B, I scoot to the far wall of the bunker where I had left my BR-55 and I load a new clip for both weapons.

I aim at the door and I take a shaky breath, tears begin to cloud my vision, my mind rejecting any reality where my best friend is dead.

"This is Winters, I'm alone here.. They got Holzhy." I choke out over the radio.

"We know, his vitals flatlined a little while ago, we're sending Kelly to help you." Chief says.

I keep my aim on the door, my eyes struggling to see through my cracked visor. The female Spartan walks inside and mans the gun while I get myself up, putting Frank's rifle over my back.

I walk over to his body, gingerly removing his broken helmet before detaching his chest piece. I reach into his shirt, pulling off his tags before stuffing them into my webbing.

I walk close to the door, another close quarters right would not end well. I hang my BR-55 from the front of my armor before grabbing my sniper rifle, aiming it towards the city.

"Hello." A female voice says in my helmet.

"Who is this?" I ask.

"Well, I'm not really a sentient being, but I am Cortana." She says.

"So an AI?" I ask.

"Yeah, but I'm a smart AI, smart enough to know that you need some strategic help in here, considering you took on a full squad of Covenant soldiers in close quarters." She snarks.

"Wow, I did not know I could hate an AI this much." I mutter.

"Enemies in bound, satellite coverage shows a platoon." She simply says.

"Be useful and play some music or something.." I mutter.

"I'll find you something classy." She says before silencing herself.

Music floods into my helmet as I aim through my scope. My eyes flick over to the right side of my HUD, it shows the name of the song and the artist; 'I Will not Bow' by Breaking Benjamin.

The music starts off quiet but quickly erupts into guitar and loud drums, the singer seems to be speaking of a battle and how he will survive.

I nod my head to the music while pulling the trigger of my rifle, watching a Jackal fall, it's blood spraying the Grunts around it. I continue to fire off shots, each one hitting an unshielded alien until finally the Grunts break, turning and running for their lives.

Of course, the Elite's turn and begin to start spraying down the deserters, easily decimating the line and waving off any other attempts to escape the battlefield.

I fire two shots into the head of the lead Elite, then two more into the second in command, forcing me to reload as I admire my handy work. The Elite's should really stop distinguishing themselves by fancy armor, just makes them a bigger target for people like me.

Once I've finished reloading I look down my scope again, the enemy is getting closer. I take a crouching position, firing off another magazine worth of shots, taking down two more before starting to back off, reloading as I step back into the bunker.

"Keep firing, I've got this." I say to the female Spartan before grabbing my BR-55 from where I left it. I step out again before switching the firing mode to single fire. I start sending round after round down range, watching through the scope of my rifle as each bullet finds its mark, by the time my magazine is out the squad is dead.

I watch another Phantom in the air get taken down by the giant cannon which resides within the bunker I am defending. I pump my fist into the air, laughing as I watch the remains of the craft sailing towards the ground. At this point it is guaranteed that they would try to send in Phantoms to other places.

"They've stopped sending Phantoms, time to remind them how much of a threat we are." Chief says over the radio. "Aim for the next Corvette in site, find it and fire." He says before the radio goes silent again.

Several loud _booms_ sound around the city before those shells are flying towards the unlucky Corvette, several more shots fire before each round is hitting into the shielded ship. The ship attempts to retreat as its shields flicker, but a shot straight into the ammunition bay from Chief's side cuts the ship in half with the explosion, leaving the large ship falling through the atmosphere.

"This is Omega 3-1, we have to pull out, we've got documentation of importance but there's nothing else back there but aliens." A Marine says over the radio.

"All units, MAC strike inbound." An AI-like voice reminds us. A large yellow streak smashes into the center of the city, causing one of the largest explosions I've ever seen. I duck into the bunker as the ground shakes and shudders from the massive explosion.

"There's nothing left to defend.." Kelly says quietly.

"Don't take it too hard, stuff like this happens all the time." I say while watching the giant crater that once was a small city that was worth something.

"How many do you think we killed?" She asks me, turning to me.

"Not enough." I simply state before walking out of the bunker and looking to the sky, a Pelican is touching down outside. In the distance the sun begins to dip below the horizon. I get into the back, sitting next to the Chief.

"Nice shooting out there, we gave'em something to fear." He says, his voice tone never really seems to change.

"We're going after them again, right?" I ask.

"You bet your ass we are." He says. "It's a long ride, you should get some sleep while you can.

I nod before adjusting myself to a comfortable position, sighing as I fall into a deep sleep.

Time: 0140 hours.

Date: February 11th, 2535 (UNSC Calendar.

Today in history: Jericho VII Falls to the Covenant.

I wake up to the feeling of someone slapping my shoulder, I look over and I see Kelly, she had probably been asked to wake me up when the time is right. I feel the Pelican touch down and I jump up, grabbing my rifle from the compartment under my seat before walking out with the crew which consists of a whole squad of Marines and of course the squad of Spartans.

"We're here to help defend another ONI base.. Apparently this one has some Covenant antiques that they would love to get back, so that means they can't glass us unless they get this back." Chief says to us over the radio.

"So we're basically a distraction for a large and genocidal alien force." I say through the radio before taking my helmet off and walking inside of the ONI facility. I look around the main cargo area, a whole lot of weapons and emplacements sit around, a lot of them marked 'experimental' which only means we get more goodies.

I tuck my helmet under my arm and I continue to look around, of course there would be no ONI people around to explain to us what these weapons do, they're too important to get glassed. The thought that hits me about this battle makes a lot of sense, the fact that I may never get off of Jericho in time.

I put my helmet back on my head for comms sake. "-Placed explosives on all essential points in the compound, bastards won't see it coming." Is all I hear, but it's pretty easy to understand that once the enemy breaks into the compound we would bury them and the artifact to distract them longer.

"Chief, answer me this." I say before taking a breath and speaking. "If this artifact has been here awhile, why didn't they just take it before?" I ask.

"The technology here, when powered, fucks with the Covenant's ground radar equipment." Kelly says, as if it's completely obvious.

I take some mental notes, they seem to know a lot about the ONI facilities on Jericho, which piques my interest. Of course I know that I shouldn't be digging around for clues on the Spartans, but I still firm myself abnormally curious, where did they-? An explosion outside interrupts my thinking, I'd have to return to the subject later on.

I jog outside to where the Marines had been sitting around just five minutes ago, now they're up in arms, their guns pointed at the outside of the compound. Several Phantoms appear overhead, landing swiftly a few yards from the compound to unload their troops. I hear a screeching sound and suddenly two of the six Phantoms spontaneously combust, purple flames rising in the air.

The Marines give a cheer as the Longsword responsible soars overhead, though it's short lived as it gets driven away by several Seraphs that had appeared from the upper atmosphere, they begin a dogfight.

Another seven or eight Phantoms fly in unharmed, bullets deflect off of their shields as they drop their troops which immediately start setting up mobile cover. The Phantoms fly off, leaving a large ground force to account for. I realize now that the mobile cover I had mentioned is actually a large flotilla of Jackals wielding their energy shields, behind them sit line after line of Grunts along with their Elite commanders. I raise my sniper rifle, but curse myself as I realize what a waste of time it would be.

My head swivels around, looking for a perch before I realize there are none, I'd have to improvise. "Chief!" I call out on the radio. "I need you, come here." I say.

He walks over. "What do you need, Specialist?" He asks.

"Just call me Winters." I say to him before walking over to the side of the building, the top being nearly three feet above me. "Boost me up." I say to him.

He crouches down, his back against the wall and his hands lowered down to the ground.

I take a few steps back, putting my rifle over my back before sprinting forward, my feet connect with his hands and soon I'm jumping up to the top, my hands gain purchase and I pull myself up. "Thanks Chief." I say to him.

I jog over to the edge facing the enemy before setting up my rifle, it's a relatively flat roof so I won't have cover, but it's a better perch than the wall. I look through my scope, all of the high value targets are protected by the shield wall.

I scope in on the Jackal blocking my shot, I fire a shot into his foot, blowing it off and forcing him to fall, two more shots leave my rifle and an Elite Major is on the ground with two holes in its head.

A green beam flies over my head, I immediately look for the sniper who would now be trying to recalculate his shot, I turn on my side and fire the last bullet of my magazine, the bullet tears the Jackal's arm off, I had miscalculated as well.

The Jackal holds the rifle with one hand, pointing it in my general direction. It fires and misses, the recoil of the rifle knocking him down. I reload my rifle, no longer paying attention to the crippled Jackal. It seems like whenever one of the shield bearers goes down, another takes its place.

"Can we please put a fucking rocket into that formation?" I yell into the radio.

"No, we have to save them for Wraiths." A Marine reminds me.

Speaking of Wraiths, several tanks start peeking over the horizon behind the formation, among these tanks is a Shadow transport. So that makes four Wraiths and three Shadow's, great.

The Wraiths fire a blue glob of plasma into the air, causing the Marines under them to scatter, the orbs hit the ground at random, some of them heavily burning Marines, some just vaporizing them.

Medics run out of the building, dragging the wounded inside while the fight rages on.

My rifle swivels around as I search for a target, my eyes scanning through my scope for any alien stupid enough to be caught out in the open. I spot one of the Grunt's that have been through enough battles to be a squad leader, unfortunately I put his survival streak down the drain as my shot enters his methane tank, forcing him to fall forward and slowly start suffocating.

I watch the Grunt, he had split off of the formation, he stands next to a large rock face, he reaches his hand out towards the rock face and I grin as I watch a Grunt step out, fumbling to get its gas mask off to save its leader.

I fire again, I watch a hole get punched into the Grunt's armor, blood sprays around him as he falls, securing the fact that I am indeed still looking at this squad of Grunts, nobody would step out to save their leader now.

The formation breaks up while I am not looking, deploying mobile cover such as their shields and large barriers that would normally be used in an enemy FOB, they set up a nice camp, the Jackal's standing in front of the camp ensure that we aren't able to shoot at the aliens setting up.

A large red laser erupts from our lines, smashing into the lead Wraith, punching through the cockpit and hitting the ammunition reserve, the tank flies sky high with a massive explosion, the three Wraith tanks behind it seem less enthusiastic about moving up now.

A stream of aliens deployed by the Shadow transports joins the enemy lines, lining up behind the walls they had set up, the Jackal's slowly back up, the second their formation breaks we begin firing again, pounding hot lead into their lines. Suddenly all of the Grunts jump up, the obvious lead Elite stands and throws his arm forward, about one hundred and fifty Grunts start running towards us in a full out charge.

I fire the last two shots of my magazine, the lead Elite falls over, blood spraying from a hole in its helmet. I can literally see the hesitation that flickers through the line, but it doesn't stop them. They continue to charge, we spray into them, cutting them down with relative ease.

We scramble to reload as the Jackal's are next, they run at us with their shields raised, I see an opening and I stand, grabbing a fragmentation grenade from my webbing before pulling the pin from it, watching the top clip fall to the floor as I give it my best throw, the grenade flies over the walls of our compound into the line of incoming Jackal's, sending several of them falling to the ground, breaking their perfect formation.

The Marine machine gunners lay into them as the gap opens, an obvious opportunity for us to pick a few of the shield bearers off. But we are only able to take down two before they reform, making another impenetrable wall.

I move my attention away from the formation, aiming at the mobile covers, waiting patiently for one of the Elite's to poke his head over the cover. The opportunity I had been waiting for arises as an Elite Major stands to give orders, two bullets enter its skull.

I reload again, my arm brushing against the several magazines I have used, I had put them all on my left side, I mentally count them, realizing I only have this last magazine left before I would have to resupply.

"Can I get some ammo up here?" I ask in my radio while reloading my rifle, pulling back the bolt before looking down the scope again, at this point I'm not even keeping count.

"All UNSC personnel, be advised, evacuation of UNSC forces outside of the ONI compound is complete, ETA five minutes until arrival at the ONI base, stay alive out there." A voice says over the general radio.

I feel myself smiling, our way off of this planet is almost here. I pretty much use my last four shots taking down two Elite Minor's, by the time I had done that, several Pelican's had landed behind the compound.

I jump up, slinging my rifle over my back before sprinting at full force towards the edge of the roof, I'm pretty far above the ground but it's either life or possible broken ankles. I use all of my strength to jump, using my arms to propel me past the back wall, my foot connects with the top of the wall but I just jump off of that too.

I roll forward as I hit the ground before half limping to the Pelican, my left ankle on fire.. Whatever, I took a risk and I was rewarded with the exact injury I was risking.

I sit in the back of the Pelican, the Spartans and several Marines join me. The Pelican lifts off, speeding away from the compound. Soon we are in space, landing in the bay of the UNSC _Resolute,_ a destroyer commanded by Captain de Blanc.

Meanwhile the glassing of Jericho VII begins.

Author's note

It took awhile, which is why I'm not going to put release dates on chapters like I did with Sins because I felt rushed constantly and it felt like I wasn't releasing as many kickass chapters as I should've been.

Hopefully you enjoyed the chapter, Winters will be having some down time next chapter.

Read on

-Rsk


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